Colby Baseball wins first game on new Coombs Field

Brooks Parker pitched into the sixth inning Thursday.

WATERVILLE, Maine — The Colby College baseball team won on the new Coombs Field on a day when the Mules were not even supposed to play.

Colby (4-8) took a 7-6 win over University of Maine at Farmington in the first game on the team’s new synthetic turf field. The game with the Beavers was supposed to be played this Monday, but the coaches decided to move the date because of a cold weather forecast for Monday.

 

Colby pinch-hitter Matt Garcia singled to right field to score Andrew Currier in the bottom of the eighth inning for the winning run. Currier led off with a walk and moved to second on a sacrifice by Bobby Forese. Blake Egan moved Currier to third base with a grounder to the shortstop. Garcia followed with the clutch two-out winning hit.

 

Currier finished the day with two hits, two runs, and an RBI. Egan also had two hits and drove in a run, while Ryan Quinn scored twice and had one hit. Csaplar and Zach Ellenthal both had one hit, one run, and an RBI. Tyler Starks scored and had one hit.

 

Ben Keene and Riley Chickering each had two hits, one run, and an RBI for the Beavers (8-4). Grayson Beressi also had two hits and scored a run, while Mark Leahy, Tom Grady, and Sean Cabaniss each had one hit and one RBI.

 

The Mule scored two runs in the second inning an RBI single by Egan that plated Csaplar and an RBI groundout by Jackson Ward.

 

The Beavers came back to take a 3-2 lead with three in the top of the third. Keene and Grady both had RBI singles and another run came in on a Colby error.

 

The Mules answered back in the bottom of the third with two more runs. Ryan Quinn led off with a single, and came all the way around to score when Zach Ellenthal singled and a throwing error helped Quinn go extra bases. Currier doubled later in the inning to bring in Ellenthal.

 

UMF went ahead 5-4 on lone runs in the sixth and seventh innings. The Beavers scored a run after Colby got the first two outs of the inning in the sixth. Mark Leahy, a pinch-hitter, singled to right field to bring in Chickerling. In the seventh, Jimmy Neal led off with a single, was balked to second, and stole third base. Cabaniss hit a sacrifice fly to right field to bring in Neal.

Colby scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to go up 6-5. Starks led off with a single and then a costly infield error put Starks on third and Quinn on second base. Ellenthal’s RBI groundout brought in Starks and Csaplar singled to center field to bring in Quinn.

The Beavers did not give up and tied the contest at 6-6 in the top of the eighth inning. Chickering had an RBI single to score Beressi.

Brooks Parker went 5.2 innings for Colby, but Csaplar got the win in relief. Tommy Forese earned the save. Meanwhile, Kyle Peterson went all eight innings for the Beavers.

Colby 7, Maine-Farmington 6

UMF     003#001#110—6#10#2

Colby    022#000#21x–7#9#1

Kyle Peterson (L) and Tyler Flayhan, Jimmy Neal (7). Brooks Parker, Dan Csaplar (6, W), Tommy Forese (9, S) and Blake Egan. 2B: Riley Chickering (UMF), Blake Egan (C), Andrew Currier (C).